Micronesia: Airplane skids off runway, miraculous escape for flyers

Weno [Micronesia],: Flyers had a miraculous escape when an Air Niugini plane, carrying 46 on board, crashed into the sea after the pilot missed the runway while attempting to land here on Friday.

The Boeing 737 aircraft “landed short of the runway”, according to a statement issued by Air Niugini, the national carrier of Papua New Guinea.

However, no causalities or serious injuries have been reported so far in the incident.
CNN in its report quoted Bill Jaynes, a passenger on the ill-fated flight, who described his experience through a video on Facebook. “I thought we landed hard until I looked over and saw a hole in the side of the plane and water was coming in, and I thought, well, this is not, like the way it’s supposed to happen,” he said in the video while calling the experience “surreal”.

Jaynes further stated that the water level in the aircraft reached their waists and the passengers used the emergency exit to escape.

Fishing boats were deployed to ferry the passengers from the semi-submerged aircraft to safety.

The airline, meanwhile, reassured their commitment towards the needs of the passengers while stating that all on board have been evacuated and taken to the hospital for examination.

[source_without_link]ANI[/source_without_link]